Dean Macey soared into gold medal contention in the decathlon at the World Championships in Edmonton last night.

The 23-year-old produced a superb display of high jumping to take a huge amount of points from all his three major rivals in Canada's Commonwealth Stadium.

Macey, who first shot to prominence at the worlds two years ago when he won silver, went into the final event of the day in second place just 75 points adrift of title holder Tomas Dvorak.

The Essex lad was 106 points ahead of Olympic champion Erki Nool with world record holder Roman Sebrle another 57 points further adrift in fourth spot.

Macey had gone into the high jump in third place overall only seven points adrift of Nool but 216 adrift of Dvorak but proceeded to transform his medal hopes with his best-ever display.

As Dvorak and Sebrle dropped out after failing to clear 2.03m and Nool went at 2.06, Macey just kept on going higher and higher.

Arms pumping in delight every time he breached a new height, Macey eventually cleared 2.15m - two centimetres higher than the best he set as a 17-year-old in 1995.

Macey failed at 2.18 but got mighty close to clearing on his second attempt, but was beaming with delight and determination after his display as he bids to atone for missing out on the medals at last year's Olympics in Sydney when he was fourth.

Macey was hoping there was better to come in the final event of the opening day, the 400metres, having clocked a personal best over 300m in training recently. Macey had opened up with a time of 10.72 secs in the 100m which was just 0.03secs off his personal best to lie third overall with Nool (10.60) and title holder Dvorak (10.62) quicker in another heat.

The former Canvey Island lifeguard would probably have been even quicker but he had to be careful after incurring a false start and was sluggish out of the blocks before powering past his rivals in the race.

But Dvorak's fellow Czech, Sebrle, who became the first man to break the 9,000 points barrier earlier in the season, made a poor start and could only finish in 10.91secs. Macey retained third place after the long jump as Dvorak powered into the overall lead with a lifetime best.

A leap of 7.59m with his first jump - 18cms off the best he set in Sydney last year - left Macey just 23 points ahead of Sebrle, who had a wind-assisted leap of 7.67m.

Dvorak, bidding for a third successive title, produced a massive effort of 8.07m to improve his best by four centimetres and take a 107-point lead over Nool, who managed 7.63m.

Macey got within seven points of Nool, the man who denied him a medal in Sydney when he was controversially crowned champion, with an effort of 15.41 in the shot. Nool's best effort was 14.90 while Dvorak extended his lead to 209 points after hitting 16.57m while Sebrle clawed one point back on Macey with a putt of 15.43m. * Maurice Greene, who won a third successive 100 metres gold medal on Sunday night, will take no further part in the World Championships in Edmonton.

Greene has at last been forced to give in to the left knee injury that has troubled him all summer.

Greene had already declined the opportunity to defend his 200m title but had said that if fit he might run for the US team in the 4x100m relay at the weekend.